You can get rid of the bum prism2 driver by moving or deleting the file "wlan-ng.conf" in /etc/pcmcia

I did that and installed the hostap drivers, because I've heard good things about them. Everything looks like it should be working (see above), but I still can't ping.

Let me know if yours starts working after you get rid of that file and configure the interface with iwconfig.

The build link is a link to your kernel source, which SuSe didn't install for you by default, Its on the CDs, probably, if not its an RPM, maybe 2 including the headers, on any given suse ftp site.

Cheers,

Finegan

Any idea what else I can try to get this thing to work, fin? Wlan-ng is gone, hostap installed just fine. It accepted all of the configuration commands without complaint. Still doesn't ping.

According to the linksys manual, the light should go solid if the card is inserter and can communicate with the laptop. Mine is flashing, which means that it's either transferring data or....?

Any idea what else I can try/ test to see what's going on here? I'm at my wit's end (doesn't take me long to get there in linux).

What's the ifconfig look like on wireless card? also, is the puppy for certain set in managed mode. Offhand I can't remember if you have to ifconfig the device up before it will apply wireless extensions settings, orinoco_cs used to be like that way back when... like .06b era. Hmm... when you say you can't ping, can you ping the router at least? or any of the other clients on the network, from the above it looked as if you had at least associated with the AP.

Cheers,

Finegan

Alright, now this is strange.

When I reboot, Iwconfig has changed from the essid I set to "test" and wlan0 doesn't even show up on ifconfig until I manually change its state to up. Also, I have to manually change the mode back from master to managed. Any idea why that would be?

Is there some wireless boot configuration file, perhaps a lingering one from the dreaded prism2 module?

And no, I cannot even ping the router.

This bloody thing is driving my crazy ;0

Okay, it just started working out of the blue. No explanation, it just works. I'm not sure if the settings will hold through a reboot, I'll test that after this post and report back.

Thanks a ton for helping out fin, as a scatterbrained newb, I appreciate your help. I am definately going to become a paid in full member because of the help I have received over the last few days.

As for you Kevin, I'm going to tell you EXACTLTY what I did so that you can live in wireless freedom too. It's the leasts I can do, I mean, I did hijack your thread ;0

Sorry if this is too detailed, I'm not sure how much of a linux newb you are. I know that I would have needed to be told every last step two days ago, before I did it myself.

Step 1: Download the kernel source in .rpm form from: http://ftp.ist.utl.pt/pub/suse/8.2/k...SE-86.i586.rpm

Step 2: Install kernel source with yast2

Step 3: As root, go to /usr/src/linux and hit "make cloneconfig". This fixes the problem with suse putting the .config file somewhere strange.

Step 3: Move or delete wlan-ng.conf from /etc/pcmcia

Step 4: Download hostap from http://hostap.epitest.fi/

Step 5: gzip -h the file you just downloaded. Then tar -x the file.

Step 6: make, then make install the file

Step 7: iwconfig wlan0. Make sure it has the proper essid. Make sure it is running in managed mode if you are connecting to an AP.

Step 8: ifconfig wlan0 up

Step 9: dhcp3cd wlan0

Step 10: Create a script like fin's monkey example below. Put it in /usr/bin Run it as root (su)

It should work now, let me know.

Alright fin, we're almost there.

The settings didn't survive the reboot.

I had to manually change mode to managed, set the essid, ifconfig wlan0 up, and then dhcpcd wlan0.

Any idea how I get these settings to survive a reboot?

I don't know a damn thing about scripting or the linux boot process ;0

Since this guy is a laptop, and you don't want to sit through a dhcpcd timeout (default 120 seconds) at every boot because you probably won't be around a wlan always... you can just either hand script something, like create a file in /usr/sbin called... dunno, "monkey"

then chmod that monkey 755 so its executable and just type "monkey" from the command line whenever you want to connect.

Or... really, what you should do is edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-wlan0 and add all of the relevant info.

Cheers,

Finegan

Do files in /etc/sysconfig/network/scripts get loaded at a certain time, or is that just the "official" directory to store that sort of scripts in?

Also, I created the file and chmoded it. When I run it I get:

/etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/icfg-wlan0: line 5: ifconfig: command not found
/etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/icfg-wlan0: line 6: iwconfig: command not found
/etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/icfg-wlan0: line 7: iwconfig: command not found
/etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/icfg-wlan0: line 8: dhcpcd: command not found

Presumably because I have to be in root in order to execute those commands. Is there a way to work the su command into the shell script?

They get loaded at boot, and by device name, and technically at card insertion, so... if you pop in that card those settings should get applied to that card and only that card since its the only wlan0 device that you've got. Now, here's the manky part....

Since the wlan-ng module, prism2_cs, takes a weird binary to configure it and SuSe has hacked up their init crap to accomodate for this set of modules AND SuSe probably figured this was the only device they were going to have with the designation wlanX, then SuSe might be feeding all the config info to that weird binary instead of to "iwconfig" where it belongs, hence the monkey script. I really don't know, I haven't got a SuSe box around anymore. That, and I'm really out of touch with how the wlan-ng modules work... which I shouldn't be as they're the most used wireless linux drivers on earth. Try to see if hacking up the wlan0 script in /etc/sysconfig works, if not it'll just hork errors...

Cheers,

Finegan

It horks, looks like monkey script it is.

Two questions:

How do I get the script to perform the operations as root, even if run from a user account? The script does it's job when I run it from su. Is there a way to work su and the password response that follows into the script without comprimising the security of the system?

How do I get the script to work from any directory. IE: how do I get it to run from

SomeGuy@linux:~>monkey

instead of

SomeGuy@linux:~>/wherever-the-script-is/monkey

The first, not really... I can think of a couple things but they're all really kludgey, it looks like su. There's also something with setting the stickybit on chmod so that you can have a binary executable by joe user with root privledges, but that's just evil.

The second part is easy, just move the monkey to somewhere in root (or joe user's) path, like /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin would be best.

Cheers,

Finegan

Alright, thanks again for all your help. I'll put that last little bit in my little guide for kevin a few posts up. If it works for him, is there a way to put that mini-cookbook onto linuxanswers.org? I want to get it somewhere where google will see it so that other people don't throw their suse 8.2 equipped laptops out windows like I almost did

Is LQ not working every 5 minutes or so for you too? I keep getting DB errors.

I been keeping up with the thread as I'm installing the kernel source etc... I was just wondering if I really the host ap driver as it seems that I'm so close without it. I just don't want to put anything on unless it's needed (limited HD space). I also see a few differences in the I'm setup ie. I do not have directory /usr/src/linux mine is /usr/src/packages/sources,specs,srpms,rpms,build. Also I am not doing DHCP as I have another WIN95 laptop in the house that is connecting and will not do so under DHCP. So I may continue to need help and if the cloneconfig command does what it sounds like it should I might be able to repair the compile issue . Let me know what you think.

Also DustOffTryAgain you did not Hi-Jack anything I appreciate all your insight and help. I just enjoy the ability to talk to others about my issues.


Kevin

P.S. I almost gave up on SuSE and the laptop install as well.

From what I can tell, the prism2 driver that comes with suse is useless. The orinoco driver that comes with suse is an outdate version. This means that you need to install either an updated version of orinoco or hostap. I used hostap because even the lastest orinoco drivers have known bugs (fin mentioned it in a post on page 2 I believe).

The hostap driver is 261 kilobytes compressed, can't be more than a meg installed.

Drop the dhcp part of the script and swap in a ifconfig wlan0 add <whatever ip address you want to give it.

By the way, my source is in the same place. In order to make the hostap driver I had to do the makecloneconfig in the directory where the hostap makefile expected to find my kernel source. I believe you can achieve the same goal by editing the makefile, but it takes a little longer.
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